Big Tech

Dawn of a Tokyo style cyberpunk society

I remember watching animes based on the genre of cyberpunk dystopian future societies, where corporations moderate everything from big sport tournaments to what opinions you are allowed to have, many Netflix series have showcased these themes in their anthology series, like Love, Death + Robots and Black Mirror. The genre has been explored by many big game developers and gaming software companies, and it seems big tech companies like Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Apple are finally treading on these dark utopian concepts, a New Brave World.

Last week, Twitter wrote to Delhi High Court telling them they won't comply with the new IT rules, laws and guidelines enacted by the government of republic of India, the law, namely the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021, says: the new IT Rules 2021 for digital media platforms includes the requirement to implement a larger grievance redressal mechanism, monthly compliance reports and more.

The reason given by twitter says something on the old lines of "curbing free speech", "executive overreach" & "threat to user privacy". Fools call the reply reasonable, I call it bullshit.

Some things are needed to be understood before I rant about Big Tech Cyberpunk Oligarchies:

The IT rules don’t ask for user data, nor any explicit traceability feature being given to the regulators, nor any executive overreach would allow them to extract user information from Twitter’s servers, installed in San Francisco, CA. Nope. The government’s only request to the giant corporation is: employ three individuals who can be appointed as grievance redressal commissioner, and compliance officer for those Twitter users who are having grievances against Twitter moderation and its guidelines. This is to take care of Twitter’s invincible role of being arbiter of truth. The traceability demand which says criminal cases which involves incitement to violence, sexual assault content, or threats to some individuals would be liable for giving up the user’s security and first originator of message, that is only possible when a judicial court or an executive orders them to reveal, which is a topic for debate and discussion. But, state have to intervene when a corporation claims to be an intermediary, but acts exactly like a publisher, no arguments like "it’s their platform, their property" or "capitalism works that way" would work when the tech companies are overstepping their regulations and act as an arbitrary magistrate instead of an intermediary platform. This argument has been backed up by France, the land of egality and fraternity, and Germany, the land of glorious western capitalism. Want to know what they think about cyberpunk like corporations overstepping their own roles, responsibilities, and more so the regulations put forth by an elected, sovereign government? Here: “The chancellor sees the complete closing down of the account of an elected president as problematic,” Steffen Seibert, her chief spokesman, said at a regular news conference in Berlin. Rights like the freedom of speech “can be interfered with, but by law and within the framework defined by the legislature — not according to a corporate decision.” The German leader’s stance was echoed by French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who said that the state and not “the digital oligarchy” is responsible for regulations, calling big tech “one of the threats” to democracy. Europe is increasingly pushing back against the growing influence of big technology companies. The European Union is currently in the process of setting up regulation that could give the bloc power to split up platforms if they don’t comply with rules." Oh–kay, seems the French and German governments are following the steps of Indian Government, or is it vice versa? I reckon the latter part. The argument is pretty simple and open ended, only elected officials, representatives of republic, and the citizens themselves are liable for consequences to their speech, no other unelected arbiter of truth, like cyberpunk Twitter Inc. have that legal power, or moral superiority over small, weak, democracies like India, who are fucked up for sure by the government of India, but, at the end of the day, it’s an elected sovereign, democratic republic, a secular state, and an old civilization which values free speech (or valued? point disputed, error 404: first amendment to the constitution of India, Jawaharlal Nehru), our free speech problems are our problems to deal with; our incompetent government who roughs up people for their views is our problem to deal with; our nincompoop, dullard representatives are our problems to deal with, it’s none of Twitter’s concern, Twitter is in no way a saint appointed by the God or a legislator elected by the people to tread on our speech, period.

There’s no arguments against the assertion that the big tech companies are influenced by political ideologies or heavy handed government officials, interfering in moderation decisions of Twitter, Facebook, Google etc. on a daily basis, it was visible when these rodent corporations blocked any criticism of the Chinese Wuhan Coronavirus, and the lab leak theory, even after American congress held various hearings these past few days on the same, including ophthalmologist, senator Rand Paul, there are investigative reports coming up in world renowned journals of science and technology, in favour of these "theories". The overstepping of tech moderation was visible when they censored Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump, and politicians from India. The biases were visible when they didn’t take action against organized mob justice groups who rioted and burned the cities of America during the June 2020 riots, the over reach was visible when they allowed people like former president of Malaysia, Mahatir Muhammad, or supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, or Indian legislator Amanatollah Khan, who incited direct violence against French people, Jews, and Hindus respectively. The bias was clearly visible when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says the employees of Twitter who indentify as conservatives don’t feel safe expressing their opinions inside the cubicles of Twitter office, the bias is clear when Twitter flag opinions or views or claims as manipulated media when there’s an investigation going on against the same claims, it shows the cyberpunk companies see themselves as way bigger than the judiciary or legal system of a democratic republic. Even if we give some leeway to these big corporations as to say, for curbing misinformation, and disinformation, the bone of contention is they never define misinformation explicitly, nor provide evidences in favour of their actions, one thing is clear: Twitter’s concern against supply of ideologically motivated opinions, and truth, and censorship of the same, won’t stop the demand for more opinions and voices, more speech is the answer for controversial speech, not censorship.

Further reading: 1 & 2

Kishan is an aspiring rant author, and an active member of a bitch like species, follow for more pieces like the above one.